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新視野大學(xué)英語(yǔ)讀寫(xiě)教程第四冊(cè)u(píng)nit4-b Section B The Information Superhighway

所屬教程:新視野大學(xué)英語(yǔ)讀寫(xiě)教程第四冊(cè)

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The Information Superhighway

Are you too tired to go to the video store but you want to see the movie Beauty and the Beast at home? Want to listen to your favorite guitar player's latest jazz cassette? Need some new reading material, like a magazine or book? No problem. Just sit down in front of your home computer or TV and enter what you want, when you want it, from an electronic catalogue containing thousands of titles.

Your school has no professors of Japanese, a language you want to learn before visiting Japan during the coming summer holiday. Don't worry. Just sign up for the language course offered by a school in another district or city, have the latest edition of the course teaching materials sent to your computer, and attend by video. If you need extra help with a translation assignment or your pronunciation, a tutor can give you feedback via your computer.

Welcome to the information superhighway.

While nearly everyone has heard of the information superhighway, even experts differ on exactly what the term means and what the future it promises will look like. Broadly speaking, however, the superhighway refers to the union of today's broadcasting, cable, video, telephone, and computer and semiconductor industries into one large all-connected industry.

Directing the union are technological advances that have made it easier to store and rapidly transmit information into homes and offices. Fiber-optic cable, for example — made up of hair-thin glass fibers — is a tremendously efficient carrier of information. Lasers shooting light through glass fiber can transmit 250,000 times as much data as a standard telephone wire, or tens of thousands of paragraphs such as this one every second.

The greatly increased volume and speed of data transmission that these technologies permit can be compared to the way in which a highway with many lanes allows more cars to move at faster speeds than a two-lane highway — hence, the information superhighway.

The closest thing to an information superhighway today is the Internet, the system of linked computer networks that allows up to 25 million people in 135 countries to exchange information.

But while the Internet primarily moves words, the information superhighway will soon make routine the electronic transmission of data in other formats, such as audio files and images. That means, for example, that a doctor in Europe who is particularly learned will be able to treat patients in America after viewing their records via computer, deciding the correct dose of medicine to give the patient, or perhaps even remotely controlling a blade wielding robot during surgery.

"Sending a segment of video mail down the hall or across the country will be easier than typing out a message on a keyboard," predicts one correspondent who specializes in technology.

The world is on "the eve of a new era", says the former United States Vice President Al Gore, the Clinton administration's leading high-technology advocate. Gore wants the federal government to play the leading role in shaping the superhighway. However, in an era of smaller budgets, the United States government is unlikely to come up with the money needed during the next 20 years to construct the superhighway.

That leaves private industry — computer, phone, and cable companies — to move into the vacuum left by the government's absence. And while these industries are pioneering the most exciting new technologies, some critics fear that profit-minded companies will only develop services for the wealthy. "If left in the hands of private enterprise, the data highway could become little more than a synthetic universe for the rich," worries Jeffrey Chester, president of the Center for Media Education in Washington, D.C.

Poor people must also have access to high technology, says another expert. "Such access will be crucial to obtaining a high-quality education and getting a good job. So many transactions and exchanges are going to be made through this medium — banking, shopping, communication, and information — that those who have to rely on the postman to send their correspondence risk really falling behind," he says.

Some experts were alarmed earlier this year when diagrams showed that four regional phone companies who are building components of the superhighway were only connecting wealthy communities.

The companies denied they were avoiding the poor, but conceded that the wealthy would likely be the first to benefit. "We had to start building some place," says a spokesman for one of the companies, "and that was in areas where there are customers we believe will buy the service. This is a business."

Advocates for the poor want the companies building the data highway to devote a portion of their profits to insuring universal access. Advocates of universal access have already launched a number of projects of their own. In Berkeley, California, the city's Community Memory Project has placed computer terminals in public buildings and subway stations, where a message can be sent for 25 cents. In Santa Monica, California, computers have replaced typewriters in all public libraries, and anyone, not just librarians, can send correspondence via computer.

Many challenges face us as we move closer to the reality of the information superhighway. In order for it to be of value to most people, individuals need to become informed about what is possible and how being connected will be of benefit. The possibilities are endless but in order for the information superhighway to become a reality, some concrete steps need to be taken to get the process started.

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信息高速公路
你是否太累了,不想去錄像店卻又想在家看《美女與野獸》?
是不是想聽(tīng)聽(tīng)你最喜歡的吉他演奏家最新的爵士樂(lè)磁帶?
或需要一些新的閱讀材料,比如雜志或書(shū)?
沒(méi)問(wèn)題。
只要坐在家中的電腦或電視機(jī)前,在一個(gè)含有上千條目的電子目錄中輸入你想要的東西和需要的時(shí)間就行了。

在暑假去日本之前你想學(xué)日語(yǔ),可學(xué)校又沒(méi)有日語(yǔ)老師。
不用擔(dān)心,
你可以報(bào)名上另一地區(qū)或城市的學(xué)校的日語(yǔ)課,讓他們將這門(mén)課程最新的教材傳送到你的電腦上,然后通過(guò)看錄像學(xué)習(xí)。
如果你在翻譯作業(yè)或發(fā)音上還需額外幫助,輔導(dǎo)教師可通過(guò)電腦給你反饋。

歡迎來(lái)到信息高速公路。

盡管幾乎人人都聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)信息高速公路,可即使專(zhuān)家們也對(duì)這一名稱(chēng)的確切含義以及它所預(yù)示的未來(lái)存在分歧。
但廣義地說(shuō),信息高速公路是指由今天的廣播、電視、錄像、電話(huà)、電腦、半導(dǎo)體等產(chǎn)業(yè)組合而成的一個(gè)互相關(guān)聯(lián)的大產(chǎn)業(yè)。

是技術(shù)進(jìn)步在引導(dǎo)著這一大聯(lián)合。這些技術(shù)進(jìn)步已使存儲(chǔ)信息以及向家庭和辦公室快速傳輸信息變得更為容易。
例如,由細(xì)如發(fā)絲的玻璃纖維制成的光纖電纜是一種極為高效的信息載體。
射過(guò)玻璃纖維的激光可以傳送的數(shù)據(jù)是標(biāo)準(zhǔn)電話(huà)線(xiàn)的25萬(wàn)倍,或者說(shuō),它每秒可傳送幾萬(wàn)段像這樣的文字。

這些技術(shù)使得數(shù)據(jù)傳送的容量和速度大大提高。這種情況可以與高速公路相比,相比雙車(chē)道,多車(chē)道能使更多的車(chē)以更快的速度行駛──信息高速公路由此得名。

今天,與信息高速公路最接近的就是互聯(lián)網(wǎng),這是一個(gè)由電腦連接而成的網(wǎng)絡(luò)系統(tǒng),它能使135個(gè)國(guó)家多達(dá)2,500萬(wàn)人進(jìn)行信息交換。

但是,互聯(lián)網(wǎng)主要是傳送文字,而信息高速公路不久將使其他形式的電子數(shù)據(jù)傳送(如聲音文件和圖像的傳送)成為普遍現(xiàn)象。
舉個(gè)例子,這將意味著歐洲的一位醫(yī)道高明的醫(yī)生通過(guò)電腦看了病歷就能給美洲的病人治病,決定病人用藥的劑量,甚至還可以遙控一個(gè)操手術(shù)刀的機(jī)器人施行手術(shù)。

一位專(zhuān)門(mén)從事科技報(bào)道的記者預(yù)言道:“把錄像郵件的片段傳送到大樓的其他地方或國(guó)內(nèi)其他地方要比在鍵盤(pán)上打出文字來(lái)更為容易。”

美國(guó)前副總統(tǒng)阿爾•戈?duì)栒f(shuō),我們這個(gè)世界正處于“新時(shí)代的前夜”。他是克林頓政府中推行高科技的主要人物。
戈?duì)栂M?lián)邦政府在決定信息高速公路的發(fā)展方面發(fā)揮領(lǐng)導(dǎo)作用。
然而,在一個(gè)預(yù)算撥款相對(duì)較少的時(shí)期,美國(guó)政府不可能拿得出今后20年里建設(shè)信息高速公路所需的資金。

這就使得私人企業(yè)──電腦公司、電話(huà)公司、有線(xiàn)電視公司──得以填補(bǔ)由于政府無(wú)法顧及所留下的空缺。
盡管這些企業(yè)在最令人振奮的新技術(shù)上領(lǐng)先,一些批評(píng)者擔(dān)心追逐利潤(rùn)的企業(yè)會(huì)只開(kāi)發(fā)面向富人的服務(wù)項(xiàng)目。
華盛頓大眾媒介教育中心主任杰弗里•切斯特?fù)?dān)心地說(shuō):“如果數(shù)據(jù)高速公路控制在私人企業(yè)手中,它可能只會(huì)成為富人的虛擬世界。”

另一位專(zhuān)家說(shuō),必須讓窮人也用得上高科技。
他說(shuō):“這種權(quán)利對(duì)于獲得高質(zhì)量的教育、找到好工作都將至關(guān)重要。
那么多的交易、交流──銀行業(yè)務(wù)、購(gòu)物、通信、信息交流──都將通過(guò)這一媒介進(jìn)行,因此那些只能靠郵遞員發(fā)送郵件的人實(shí)在是有落伍的危險(xiǎn)了。”

今年年初,當(dāng)圖表顯示正在建設(shè)信息高速公路設(shè)施的四家地區(qū)性電話(huà)公司只接通了富人社區(qū)時(shí),一些專(zhuān)家對(duì)此不無(wú)擔(dān)憂(yōu)。

這幾家公司否認(rèn)自己避開(kāi)窮人,但也承認(rèn)有錢(qián)人會(huì)成為首批受益者。
其中一家公司的發(fā)言人說(shuō):“我們總要先從某些地區(qū)開(kāi)始,即我們認(rèn)為會(huì)有顧客購(gòu)買(mǎi)這些服務(wù)的地區(qū)。做生意就是這樣。”

維護(hù)窮人權(quán)益的人士希望這些正在建設(shè)數(shù)據(jù)高速公路的公司能夠?qū)⑵淅麧?rùn)的一部分用于此項(xiàng)技術(shù)的普及。
提倡技術(shù)普及的人士已啟動(dòng)了他們自己的幾個(gè)項(xiàng)目。
在加利福尼亞的伯克利,“社區(qū)存儲(chǔ)器項(xiàng)目”已在公共建筑物和地鐵站里安裝了電腦終端,花25美分就可發(fā)送信息。
在加州的圣莫尼卡,所有公共圖書(shū)館里的打字機(jī)都被換成了電腦;任何人,不僅僅是圖書(shū)館管理員,都可通過(guò)電腦發(fā)信件。

隨著我們?nèi)找媾R近信息高速公路的實(shí)現(xiàn),我們也面臨著許多挑戰(zhàn)。
為了使信息高速公路對(duì)大多數(shù)人有價(jià)值,人們應(yīng)該了解哪些是可能做到的,以及連通后如何能從中受益。
信息高速公路帶來(lái)的可能性不勝枚舉,但要使其成為現(xiàn)實(shí),還必須采取具體的措施來(lái)開(kāi)展這一工作。

 

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